Street Fighter IV is the next numarical sequal to the popular Street Fighter series and takes the series in a graphically 90 degree turn. Instead of using the standard hand drawn animation, Street Fighter IV uses full 3D fightera and backgrounds, giving it a much more interesting twist of visual flavor.

GRAPHICS/VISUALS

As I mentioned above, the graphics have made a huge turn around in this department. After 20 years of 2D animation and backgrounds, Capcom took a huge leap ahead and jumped into the world of 3D. Both the characters and the backgrounds are in 3D, and allow for some more camera work to be done during certain attacks. When Ultra attacks are preformed, the camera zooms in on the character, and then shifts to and fro as the fighter does their Ultra. Some of them are very cool to watch.

Dispite the 3D overhaul of the graphics, the game is still presented in a locked 2D camera set. You don’t play the game like you would in Tekken or Soul Calibur where you have full movement front to back and left to right. It’s still just moving from the front to the back. At least, not until Tekken X Street Fighter finally comes out.

SOUND

The sound is pretty standard in this game. I’ve noticed that the characters actually talk between rounds when you fight and before the fights as well. That is why I thought it was really strange when after all this talking and the like before and during the match that when somebody actually wins the match, all you see is the characters talking strictly in text at the bottom of the screen. It’s almost like Capcom got lazy and decided not to throw in the voice acting for the end of the bouts.

The other thing I thought was pretty cool was the intro music. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting any thing great at all for an intro. I thought there would be NO intro AT ALL, just like the early Street Fighter 2 games. Granted, I can’t comment on the Alpha and SF 3 titles since this game was really the first actual sequal that I tried since Street Fighter 2 (And I would add Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix into that since it’s just a remake of the original games). When the intro started and a full song came on (A song called Indestructible by EXILE I believe) I was pleasently shocked. It was pretty cool and I found that I actually liked the song even though it’s a J-Pop song. Life is weird sometimes.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is pretty much the same as the other Street Fighter games. If you knew how to play Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter 2, you can easily pick up the controller and perform the Hadoken right off the bat. Of course, for me, it did take me a few matches to really get used to this version of the game.

Everything seems to react heavier than in SF2. Using Blanka’s rolling death move seemed slower to me at first. Beacause of this, when I accidently was pushed into an online game through the Arcade Mode, I had my ass handed back to me. I lost so fast it wasn’t even funny. I felt like such a noob. After finally learning the game though, I went back online again. Now, granted, I still lost, but I put up much more of a fight than the first time. Then again, I always lose in Soul Calibur IV as well, so my losing online in these fighting games is pretty much par for the course.

IN THE END

In the end, I found that I really do enjoy playing this game. Street Fighter IV is very cool in how it’s made and the new factor it has with it’s look and feel. Although the game can get boring quickly when you’re playing it through Arcade Mode all the time and you never go online or have a buddy to play with, it’s still great. Certainly having other people to play with can really enhance the enjoyment of this game. My nephew and I play this all the time and we have a blast. I even got my brother in law to play it with me. He hasn’t played any Street Fighter game since the Super NES days when I had SF2 Turbo. I think that’s why this game is so nice.

All I have to to is enjoy the game for a while, and then I’ll eventually get Super Street Fighter IV. I know that SSFIV has been out for a while, and this game has been out even longer, it’s still nice to play. I may even put up a small review on SSFIV when I get it since I have a big review for SFIV. No reason to repeat myself on the things that the newer version has that this one does already, right?